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Family Activities How To Life Parenting

6 Ways to Help Your Kids Be Productive and Happy

Raising children and helping your kids be productive and happy isn’t always an easy job. With technology becoming an ever-present distraction, it is even harder than before. As a parent, you want to do whatever it takes to see your kids accomplish their daily tasks and live a life that matters. 

Even so, it takes a good amount of time, energy, and patience to instill the necessary values. If done right, however, your kids could have peak performance for the rest of their lives. As a parent, you play a huge role in your child’s enjoyment, satisfaction, and overall development. 

Use the proven tips below to set your kids up for successful and impactful futures.  

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How to Make Your Kids Productive and Happy

1. Make Your Home as Comfortable as Possible

One of the best ways to raise happy kids is by creating a positive environment around them to make them feel loved and respected. Setting the tone for your home can be done by enforcing proper communication channels, using the correct language, and encouraging praise. It is also important to keep the physical space neat and in good shape. 

Notably, kids love cute spaces. Having an exclusive spot for them in the house helps them feel wanted and loved. They will love that you cared enough to create a space just for them.

Plus, it gives them the liberty to decorate their space the way they want to. With additional custom-made designs such as the cabin beds at Cuckooland, you can foster creativity and innovation, making your little ones productive.  

2. Give Them Daily Tasks and Responsibilities

Getting your kids to take out the garbage, do the dishes, or even mow the lawn shouldn’t be seen as a way of reducing the workload. Instead, it is a way of helping your kids live better lives. By making them follow a specific routine with well-defined tasks, they become responsible and, eventually, champions of respecting authority. 

Learn how to be authoritative, but at the same time, not too strict or hard on your kids. Once in a while, give them huge responsibilities such as making dinner or deciding where to hang out. Then, watch how it will slowly cultivate confidence and decisiveness. 

3. Inspire Core Values and Good Habits

According to scientific studies, if you want your kids to be dedicated to their studies, or lead straight lives, present yourself as one of the best role models they could have. Core values such as kindness and managing emotions go a long way in shaping their mental health. Make sure these values are instilled in your children by letting them see you practice them, too.

Teaching kids to respect the environment is also essential. Educating your kids on how to save energy and make eco-friendly choices is a great way to encourage them to develop positive values around protecting natural resources. This provides lots of excellent learning opportunities to teach them about renewable energy sources, such as those used by CleanChoice Energy, and to educate them on how renewable energy is generated.

As a caregiver, be sensitive at all times and make decisions from an empathetic point of view. Your kids are more likely to respond to this form of parenting than an authoritarian one. What most parents don’t understand is that kids absorb all their expressions, and those expressions shape and influence their young self-esteem.  

4. Make Time for Them, Set Limits, and Be Consistent

Sometimes, it’s not about what your kids do that counts, but about what you do. How many times a week do you spend quality time with them? Are you a consistent parent, or do you always have excuses and reasons in-store? 

Being a present parent enhances the productivity of your child by making them aware of parental authority. It also helps with adhering to rules and regulations. Setting limits ensures proper management of time and resources while enforcing discipline. 

5. Make Your Happiness a Priority

Energy can be reciprocated and entertained by your kid’s ever-growing mind. Let’s face it – you also have needs, responsibilities, and expectations to meet. It can be hard to be fully present while managing the pressure, but you have to take it easy on yourself. 

Getting everything done should not be seen as selfishness but as a means of enjoying quality time with your kids. Taking care of yourself and meeting all your desired expectations gives you a clear and relaxed mind to handle kids. 

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Mistakes You Should Avoid When Raising Your Kids

While it may appear easy to implement the above tips, it is also easy to make mistakes when raising your kids. Some of them include:

  • Shaming your children 
  • Imposing micromanagement rules
  • Failure to give them a solid emotional base
  • Correcting your kids constantly without giving them room to make mistakes
  • Encouraging limited play instead of unstructured play

As parents, you should strive to provide the best for your kids. Transforming and molding them might feel like an uphill task and could cause some disagreement or stress, but it helps them grow into young, responsible, and productive individuals. 

Help Your Kids Be Productive and Happy

Implement these tips, and you will be sure to play your part in helping your kids be productive and happy. With some concentrated effort and discipline, you can make it happen. Would you add anything to this list?

Categories
Classroom Learning Parenting

Reasons to Choose an Online Charter School for Your Family

This year has presented parents with a lot of challenges, and many parents have considered an online charter school for their children. There have been huge hurdles, including hurricanes, major elections, and the big elephant in the room, Covid-19.

For families, 2020 has been a balancing act or more likely a juggling act of being a parent, an employee, a teacher, a physical trainer, and even a master banana bread maker.

You may be looking for more help around the house. You can only wear so many hats until you are not good at any of the roles. Well, now is a good time to consider letting the teachers do the instruction with online charter school options. 

While there are many options to choose from for your children, this is just one of the popular options. Each family has to consider what is best for them, without considering what everyone else is doing. Keep that in mind as you consider this option.

Why Choose an Online Charter School?

School is Closer than Ever Before

When you considered buying a home or settling down, you probably thought about many things, including proximity to your work as well as the local school. However, with the advancements of technology and educational institutions, your physical location is not necessarily a factor in where your kids are enrolled.

In fact, you can’t get much closer to your classroom than waking up and getting out of bed to your laptop, desk, and chair. In a world where many in-person classes have been cancelled, online charter schools are a very safe and wise decision for 2020 and into the future.

Moving or Relocating Concerns

When you have kids, you really think twice about a move. There are many things that you should think about when considering a big change like moving.

One of the most important things to think about is the education that you desire for your kids. Do you want your kids to go to a neighborhood school with the same kids on your block? Do you want them to get to know kids from around the world from different backgrounds?

If you select an online charter school for your kids, your kids can learn from anywhere regardless of where your home is or where your career takes you.

Best Teachers from Around the World

When you choose an online charter school, you get the best educators from around the world. Just picture, your child’s art history teacher is based in New York City where she has been a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Likewise, the Spanish teacher is a native speaker from Madrid, Spain with over twenty years of teaching experience. No longer does an online school need to source its teaching talent from the local region.

Online learning can source the best educational talents for its curriculum. Online charter schools can skim the cream of the crop, getting only seasoned professionals.

Reasons to Choose an Online Charter School for Your Family

This year has been one obstacle after another. First and foremost, you were concerned about your family’s health and keeping your job during an economic downturn.

However, the education of your family was (and still is) also a worry. While you think about your options, consider an online charter school ease your thoughts. Trust your child’s safety, health, and education to an online charter school.

While the best option for our family is to have the kids in a face-to-face learning environment, our local schools have closed back up for now. We are hoping it is only short-term, but everything is unpredictable now. What option is best for your family? Tell me about it in the comments, I’d love to hear about it!

Categories
Parenting Teenager

World Emoji Day – Do You Know What These Popular Emojis Really Mean?

July 17th is World Emoji Day, so what better way to celebrate than learning all about what these popular emojis mean when teenagers use them! As a mom (step-mom, whatevs) to a 16 and 12-year-old, I’m always trying to keep up with what they are talking about.

Emojis made this especially hard because what they meant to my teen and pre-teen was completely different than what they meant to me. This made for some awkward text conversations when I sent something innocent and they got offended. Oops.

Anyway, our teenager was kind enough to fill us in on some of these. Other ones I had to learn on Google. I put together this useful guide to help you understand what your teenager is saying when they use emojis.

What These Popular Emojis Mean

🐍 The snake emoji can indicate a real snake, or it can be an insult. Used as an insult, this character means that someone is being a backstabber, deceitful, or duplicitous.

🍆 An eggplant emoji is sometimes used to reference male genitalia. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it used to represent an actual eggplant, honestly.

🍑 The peach represents a butt. To be honest, I don’t think it’s even shaped like a peach, so I’m sure the butt representation was intended all along.

❄️ When a snowflake is used when it’s not winter, it’s likely an insult. This insult means that someone believes they are more unique than they are, feels entitled, or is overly-emotional. It also indicates that someone is easily offended and unable to accept opinions that are different from their own.

💨 I always thought this emoji was smoke, but I found it in the ‘nature’ section so maybe it’s supposed to be wind. Either way, teenagers use this emoji to represent vaping.

🐸 A frog means something or someone is ugly. This emoji is never a good sign unless you’re talking about a real frog.

🎥🍿❄️ If you see these three emojis together, it means Netflix and chill….. and we all know what that means.

It can be hard to keep up with our teenagers in a world that offers them so many communication methods. One of the best ways to get around that struggle is to understand their forms of communication. Then, you’ll be able to watch for red flags and keep your child safe on the internet.

Check Out This Emoji Book to Learn More

This post contains affiliate links. It costs you nothing extra, but I may receive a small commission.

What Emoji Did I Miss?

I didn’t cover even close to enough emojis in this blog post! Do you know any hidden meanings of your teen’s favorite emojis? Tell me about it in the comments!

Before I go, I want to share my favorite emoji (no hidden meaning here!). I love this 🤣 laughing emoji because I’m always laughing and telling jokes. It also reminds of me Cartman from South Park, but I think that’s just me.

What’s your favorite emoji? Tell me about that in the comments, too!

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World Emoji Day, What emojis really mean, what emojis mean to teenagers

P.S. Check Out This Blog Post to Help Keep Your Teen Safe Online

Teenager Cell Phone Contract

Categories
Big Kid Big kid fun Craft crafts Free Activities Holiday How To Toddler and Preschool Age Fun

Leprechaun Finders – Toilet Paper Roll Binoculars

These Leprechaun Finders were a life-saver for me today as my kids desperately needed something to do. The school’s are shut down in our state because of the Corona Virus (Covid-19), and many public places have shut down as well. This includes our local indoor play places, restaurants, movie theatres and more. Unfortunately, all of this means the kids are already getting bored.

I want to keep them learning, creating, and engaging during this social-distancing time, so finding new activities to do each day is important. Along with practicing sight words for Sylas, letter recognition (capital and lowercase) for Josie, and name recognition for Liam, time for creativity has been essential.

With St. Patrick’s Day here, I thought it would be the perfect time to create Leprechaun Finders! They were easy, so much fun (they doubled as fine motor play!), and they kept the kids busy for quite some time.

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How to Make Leprechaun Finders

Materials:

This post contains affiliate links. It costs you nothing extra, but I may receive a small commission.

Directions

1. Cut the construction paper to fit perfectly around each toiler paper roll, then glue the paper in place. If you choose paint instead of paper, you would paint the tube green here instead.

2. Have the child decorate each of the green tubes with sequins, pipe cleaners, or sequins. You could also just have them decorate with markers or crayons. It can be as simple as you want it!

3. Hold the decorated rolls side by side and place a piece of tape starting on the inside of one roll and finishing on the inside of the other roll. Do this on both the front and the back of the toiler paper roll binoculars (or Leprechaun finders).

4. Now, you can add a piece of string to this so that the kids can wear it around their necks, but I didn’t do this for ours.

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Where to Use Your Leprechaun Finders

We started out using them inside of the house, looking out windows. I think by the time they were done inside, they had spent at least 5 minutes looking out every window in the house.

When they didn’t find them outside of the windows, we took them out to the backyard. Then, eventually, we went on a walk around the neighborhood looking for Leprechauns.

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Final Thought on Leprechaun Finder – Toilet Paper Roll Binoculars

This St Patty’s Day craft was so easy and so much fun. The kids loved it, and the prep and clean-up were easy for me. I’m a huge fan of toilet paper roll binoculars, and I foresee us doing more of these for future holidays.

Now, I have less than 24 hours to figure out how to trick the kids into thinking they found a Leprechaun using their Leprechaun finders! Any ideas? Let me know in the comments.

Categories
Big Kid Gifts Holiday

Gift Ideas for a 12 Year Old Boy

Whether you need birthday gifts, a “just because” gift, or Christmas gift ideas for a 12-year-old boy, this is the perfect gift guide. At 12, boys stop asking for toys as much and become a little more difficult to buy gifts for. I think it’s important to still find gifts for boys to “play” with, so I make sure to mix in toys for a 12-year-old with the video games and electronics that they always tend to ask for.

Since they are sometimes hard to buy for, I did my research (including asking our own son) and put together this list of gift ideas for a 12-year-old boy.

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22 Best Gift Ideas for a 12 Year Old Boy

1. Atmosphere Smart Galaxy Star Projector

This projector can transform the color and mood of the room in only seconds. There are 16.7 million colors to choose from, and he can control the speed settings and brightness. The best part is that this is a smart projector, so it can be controlled right from a phone. It can also be connected to an Alexa or Google device, and you can set a timer for when it shuts off.

2. Game System

A PlayStation 4 or Xbox 1 are both great gifts for a 12-year-old boy, and Fortnite gifts are always a safe choice.

2. Xbox Live Membership

If your son plays online (which is the case with most games) this is a necessity. You can choose a 6-month option or a 12-month option. This allows the gamer to play online with his friends.

3. Drone

Drones are so much fun, and they normally get kids outside to play. If you’re unfamiliar with a drone, the child will use a remote control to fly the device through the air.

4. Amazon Echo

Our 12 year old loves to listen to music, and we are always finding our kitchen Echo in his room. He’d LOVE to have his own, so I know that it is a great gift for a 12-year-old boy.

5. Fortnite Nerf gun

It seems as if kids are growing up quicker than ever before, and I’ve found that 12 is about the age when kids stop asking for as many toys. This one is perfect because it does help them return to their younger years and relax a little more, but it is also a little cooler because it is Fortnite. 😉

Really, though, our son doesn’t ask for many toys anymore, but I always make sure to get him one Nerf gun. Since I only get him one, I make sure it’s cool and different from anything he’s had before.

6. Xbox controller

If the 12 year old boy plays video games, he could normally use another controller. And if he doesn’t NEED one but wants a cooler one, why not, right?

7. Bluetooth headset

Again, if your son plays online and with his friends a lot the Bluetooth headset is kind of a necessity. They want to be able to communicate with their friends while gaming.

8. Legos

There are so many Legos to choose from, and it can be difficult to choose just one Lego set for a 12 year old boy. To avoid the stress of picking the “perfect” one, you could choose an option that allows the child to build many different thins.

9. Wireless ear buds

If your son has a smartphone, and an older sibling, this one is definitly a want on their wish list. And lets be honest. No one likes the wires;)

10. Apple Watch or Fitbit

If your son has a smartphone this comes in handy as a parent as well as a kid. Kids like it because its the latest and greatest and you’ll love it because you’ll always be able to get ahold of them (without an excuse) and kids don’t follow the “street light” rule anymore.

11. Waterproof Bluetooth speaker

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12. K’Nex Thrill Rides

There are so many cool options when it comes to K’Nex Thrill Rides as a great gift for a 12-year-old. It was so hard for me to decide on one as a gift for a tween, only because there were so many potential options.

13. Monopoly Voice Banking

14. Chromebook

15. Over the door basketball hoop

16. Electric scooter

17. Go pro

18. Gaming chair

So I never knew why kids wanted “office chairs” for their bedrooms when they never sat at their desk anyway, but then I learned that these are “gaming chairs”. My bad. Anyway, if you’re buying for a kiddo who plays video games, he’d love something like this!

19. Madden 20

This is one game that I have found that boys of all personalities love! I buy the newest version each year.

Playstaton 4:

Xbox One:

20. NBA 2K20

PlayStation 4:

Xbox One:

21. Champion clothing

22. Amazon Music Membership

If you are interested in giving Amazon Music Unlimited as a gift for a 12-year-old boy, you can try it out yourself first. If you’re anything like me, you have to feel confident in the gifts you’re giving. The free trial of Amazon Music Unlimited will allow you to see exactly what it is before you gift it.

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Final Thoughts On Gift Ideas for a 12 Year Old Boy

With the holidays coming, there are so many kids to buy for. It can be hard to come up with awesome gift ideas for a 12-year-old boy since that’s about the age when they stop asking for toys as much. Luckily, I’ve done the research for you, and I hope this gift guide for a 12-year-old helps you find the perfect gift!

What would you add to this list of best gifts for a 12-year-old boy?

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Other Gift Guides

Gift ideas for a:

Categories
Big Kid Big kid fun Classroom crafts Family Activities Sensory Play

Dyed Rice Layers of the Earth 3D Project

Peyton (our 11 year old) loves school projects where he gets to use his creativity. In 4th grade, he had to create a 3D animal and he chose a paper mache diamondback rattlesnake, which turned out SO cool. This time, he had to create a 3D model of the layers of the earth (6th-grade science) and he chose to use dyed rice in a mason jar.

How to Make the Layers of the Earth with Colored Rice

What you need:

  • 2 cups of white rice
  • 2.5 teaspoons of white vinegar
  • Food coloring (yellow, orange, red, green, brown)
  • 16 oz. mason jar
  • Ziploc bags (any size) – one bag per color
  • Paper towel — *You’ll be mad if you don’t check out this AMAZING deal I found on paper towel!!*
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This post contains affiliate links. It costs you nothing extra, but I may receive a small commission.

How to Make it:

  1. Divide 2 cups of uncooked rice into 5 parts. The parts should be divided based on the sizes of each layer of the earth… some will be smaller than others.
  2. Add each of the 5 parts into individual Ziploc bags and add 1/2 teaspoon of white vinegar to each.
  3. Then, begin adding the food coloring to each bag. The amount of food coloring you use will depend on how you want the colors to look.
  4. Dump each color out onto a dry paper towel, keeping all colors separate.
  5. Allow the dyed rice to dry for one hour.
  6. Pour the dyed rice into a 16 oz. mason jar, beginning with the innermost layer of the earth. In Peyton’s case, this was the inner core, which he made yellow and poured into the bottom of the jar.
  7. Pour each additional layer on top of that one, working from the inside layers to the outside layers. The outermost layers will be at the top of your jar.
  8. Put the lid on, and your layers of the earth project is complete!

Layers of the Earth Used in this Project

  • Yellow: bottom layer, inner core
  • Orange: 2nd from the bottom, outer core
  • Red: 3rd from the bottom, lower mantle
  • Green: 4th from the bottom, upper mantle
  • Brown: top layer, crust

Tips:

*Fill the mason jar ALL the way to the top with rice. This prevents the rice from moving around and mixing together. You’ll want to keep your colors separate, as those represent the layers of the earth.

*Distribute the rice to 5 bags before dying any. Determine which bag of rice will be making up which layer, and write it on the outside of the bag. This way, your largest layer (the upper mantel in Peyton’s case) has the most rice in the bag and it doesn’t get mixed up with a different layer.

*—->This<—- pack of food coloring is the exact one I bought for this project. It contains all the colors Peyton needed plus some additional colors, too.

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Other Ideas for Layers of the Earth 3D Project

His original idea was to use 5 different colors of glitter, which I thought would have looked super cool. He changed his mind and decided on the rice model instead, however.

Some other ideas include:

  • Styrofoam ball
  • Play-doh or clay
  • Colored sand
  • Glitter
  • Cake

Final Thoughts on Layers of the Earth 3D Project

I’m always so excited when Peyton is assigned a school project. He is SO creative and has so much fun with them.

What project would you create if you were to make a 3D model symbolizing the layers of the earth? Tell me about it in the comments!

Categories
Big Kid crafts Kindergarten Age

Easy Toilet Paper Roll Race Car Craft For Kids

We love to do crafts, and, on a whim, decided we wanted to use our surplus of toilet paper rolls. The race car craft for kids was perfect for my boys, and they were able to do most of it theirselves. We used supplies we had on hand, so it was a perfect last-minute idea.

*this post contains affiliate links*

How to Make Race Car Craft For Kids

Materials:

Race Car Craft

Directions:

  • Paint the toilet paper rolls whatever color you want your car to be.
  • while the paint dries, draw circles on the white and black paper to make the tires. The white circles should be a little smaller.
  • Glue the smaller white circles onto the larger black circles.
  • Use a marker to put a black dot in the middle of the tires.
  • The seat is the only part I had to help with. Use a knife to create a hole big enough to get the scissors into the middle of the toiler paper rolls. Then, use scissors to cut a half oval, pulling the attached flap up to make the back of the seat.
  • Paint the seat back (it was inside the roll before so didn’t get painted in the first step).
  • Add decals to the car with markers and paper to create designs, numbers, or anything else.
  • Once all the paint is dry, glue the tires and decals to the car.
Race Car Craft For Kids

Recap: Race Car Craft For Kids

It really was that simple!! The boys loved how they turned out and were so excited to show them off. They did most of it with very minimal help from me, which is my favorite. Do your kiddos like cars? If so, try this activity and share the final result with me. I’d love to see it!